On Horseback | Page 9

a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger, whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious meeting once a fortnight. Good, honest people these, not unduly puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in and year out. Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party, now and then, in the winter. What a price to pay for mere life!
Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this time a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed, an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a rich flavor of cattle, and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it, says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it also, but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even the Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee (so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two thick slabs of dough, with a squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper staggered the novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking were a common occurrence and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet, and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to taste, we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned encounters of the drovers' herd.
We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of the supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for the entertainment of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it. It was $1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents for each meal and lodging.
Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and turning out to be twenty-two, and a rough road. There is a little settlement about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had the company of the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl. Neither she nor any other people we encountered had any dialect or local peculiarity of speech. Indeed, those we encountered that morning had nothing in manner or accent to distinguish them. The novelists had led us to expect something different; and the modest and pretty young lady with frank and open blue eyes, who wore gloves and used the common English speech, had never figured in the fiction of the region. Cherished illusions vanish often on near approach. The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note, except the occasional use of "hit" for "it."
The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the thermometer mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of the way, the ride became tedious before we reached the summit. On the summit is the dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in these parts. We